Blog Posts

Since 2005, Noveller’s Sarah Lipstate has been using effects pedals to transform her guitar into synthesizers, string quartets, and instruments we don’t even have names for yet. In her live shows, she uses a looper to painstakingly reconstruct compositions built from layer upon layer of processed sounds, inducing a dreamlike musical fugue state that bridges the gap between raucous indie rock and minimalist classical music.

In this performance of “Deep Shelter” from the album A Pink Sunset for No One, Lipstate loops the opening phrase containing an Eventide H9 synth patch stacked with the Pitch Bay before adding rhythmic counterpoint from the Rainbow Machine set to a subtle chorus-y echo. During the coda, she steps on the Avalanche Run to provide ambient reverb and delay for a flurry of notes floating atop a somber piano loop. Lipstate’s “always on” reverb is the Levitation, which she places second-to-last in her effects chain, just before her loop pedal.

When EQD circuit builder Josh Novak isn’t making pedals, he shreds with Akron-based prog-punks (and meme masters) Actual Form. “In The Food Court of the Crimson King” is a happy-meal sized nugget of rock - an entire 70s prog LP’s-worth of twists and turns stuffed into just under three-and-a-half-minutes and served on a toasted sesame seed bun…